Month: March 2007 Page 2 of 3

Over the past two days, I have read (or skimmed) G.W.F. Hegel, J.G. Herder, David Hume, and Karl Marx (but not much Marx, because I got bored). I have also read about Alexander Pope, Homer, Friedrich Schiller, Montesqieu, neo-classicism, and the philosophy of history. (Being a grad student does wonders for your speed-reading abilities…)

All that to say that I found this passage in Hegel to be rather amusing, but that could be just because I’m going cross-eyed.

Here in Germany, the so-called “higher criticism” has invaded not only the whole realm of literary studies, but also that of historical writing (in which, by abandoning the basic task of history, i.e., judicious historical studies, writers have left the way open for the most arbitrary ideas and combinations). This higher criticism has been the pretext for introducing all the un-historical monstrosities a vain imagination could suggest. It too is a method of bringing a present into the past, namely by substituting subjective fancies for historical data–fancies which are considered the more excellent the bolder they are, that is, the less they have to substantiate them, the scantier the details on which they are based, and the more widely they diverge from the best established facts of history. (Hegel, Introduction to the Lectures on the Philosophy of History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975, p 23)

Note that Hegel’s Philosophy of History and his History of Philosophy are two entirely separate works. Yeah, that confused me for a while. Especially since the editions I got from the library are just the introductions, anyway. Because the Introduction to the Lectures on the Philosophy of History is in the philosophy section, but the actual Lectures on the Philosophy of History is in the history section. Which sort of makes sense, but didn’t really when I didn’t know the intricacies of Hegel’s works as well as I do now. My professor tried to scare me away from Hegel, but I actually enjoyed what I read of him. Not as hard as Kant, and more interesting. (But then, I find history more interesting than philosophy–if I tried to read some of Hegel’s more philosophic stuff, I might have more difficulty. The Phenomenology of Spirit certainly sounds daunting, at least.)

My European Romanticism class has apparently turned into a philosophy class, hasn’t it? At least as far as the topics I keep picking go (the current topic being the differences between neo-classical and Romantic views of history, especially as it relates to their appropriation of/imitation of/admiration for Homer and classical poetry). Oh, well. It’s actually really interesting…these are the kind of philosophers I wanted to learn about in the Intro to Philosophy class I took my senior year of college. Instead I got a whole semester on pre-Platonic Greek philosophy, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and the definition of worldview, which I already knew, thank you very much. Now if I can just figure out a way to study the existentialists (i.e., tie them into a paper, because without accountability I’ll never study them), I’ll be happy. :) Also, what does it say about me and poetry that I’d rather attempt Kant, Hegel, Hume, and Herder than Shelley and Wordsworth? Hmmmm…..

In other news, if my browser would quit freezing every few seconds, it would be enormously beneficial to my ability to, I don’t know, DO ANYTHING?! Firefox has been hogging resources even more than usual lately, and even restarting everything doesn’t seem to help for very long. I just uninstalled several plugins I don’t use very much…hopefully that will help.

Three things to remember to make grad school enjoyable*:

1. School is for learning.

Therefore, if I learn something I didn’t know before, I am ahead. I have succeeded. I have fulfilled a goal. This means that my success in grad school is measured based on the difference between the amount I know at the end of grad school and the amount I knew when I started, NOT on how many new insights I came up with. If I were going to be a professor whose job depended on publishing new insights every several months, then I would place more importance on that. But I’m not. So I won’t. If I write a paper that is nothing more than a synthesis of everything I found out about a topic, stated clearly, succinctly, and interestingly, I am going to claim that paper as valid and valuable to me, whether or not it presents grand new ideas.

2. I am not in competition with the other grad students.

My papers don’t have to be better than theirs, I don’t have to come up with more insights than them, I don’t have to say more things in class than them. They may be competing with each other eventually, for jobs and fellowships and I don’t know what all, but I won’t. Even so, I think competing with other people can sometimes be helpful when it pushes us to excel, but there’s also a point where thinking of life as a competition only increases stress, distrust, and enmity. And that’s true whether the competition is real or imagined. In either case, I’m eschewing it, in favor of the next perspective.

3. My scholastic efforts are participatory, not performative.

This is an alternative perspective to the competition one, really, and one I think is healthier. When I do a presentation on William Cowper, it’s not performative. That is, I’m not doing it to perform and “show off” how well I can do presentations. I’m doing it to share what I’ve learned, for the greater knowledge of the whole class. If I write a paper about Langston Hughes, the purpose is not to show what an awesome paper-writer I am, but to provide an opportunity for discussion. In other words, I used to think of paper-writing as a place to show off. And it can be that, but I think it’s better seen as a participatory act meant not as self-aggrandizement, but as a catalyst for conversation and discussion. Performative acts are focused on the performer(s) and separate performer from audience. Participatory acts are focused on the community and blur the distinction between performer and audience. If academia is about increasing knowledge, then perhaps everything it does should be participatory rather than performative.

*these things apply more strongly to people who are not really set on becoming professors at the end of grad school; like, you know, me.